‘Do you really want to be a journalist?’ She frowns as she passes me her credit card. Did I say that? I barely know what she’s talking about. ‘You definitely ask a lot of questions … and they aren’t stupid ones, either.’

I fumble with her card, bending to pick it up almost as soon as I’ve dropped it.

‘If you’re serious, then get yourself an internship at a local paper. You need to do some hard yards on local stories. It’s the best training there is. You wouldn’t believe how many people show up with degrees in journalism and zero on-the-job experience. They couldn’t chase a story if it bit them in the arse.’

I rip off her receipt, passing it over the belt.

‘I would take an apprentice from the local rag over a university graduate any day of the week. See you tomorrow?’

I nod, gazing after her as she disappears into the dark. Maybe that’s the way out, I think, watching as the doors open and close again and again in front of me until I realise I must have got up to follow her.

223

Marie ~ London ~ 2006

The train roars round us, swinging from side to side as it thunders back into London, as if all the energy it missed out on while the power was down is surging in bursts now it’s back on. I swing with it, finally a rhythm that’s in time with my brain, finally the sensation of power firing every cell in my body with the desire for justice and revenge. Carly’s dancing, her wild spinning, marking out my mind’s centre of gravity. And Dominic? He’s frozen to the spot, brain whirring as loudly as the clattering engine. As too is mine – live-wired with information, with the certainty that finally, I hold all the cards. Finally, there’s nothing they can say to bury me. I can prove everything, just by being myself … and justice will follow, even if freedom never does. Dominic, and Nine, will make sure of that.

‘Are you telling me you were part of this?’

He lurches towards me as the train veers west. I nod as all the answers suddenly stick in my throat, so much to say, finally, I don’t know how to start. Behind my eyelids, Carly pauses, a ballerina on her tiptoes, peering at him.

‘But how…’ His words trail off into the air as he stares at me, then into the distance out of the porthole window.

‘Marie…’ he says to himself, before turning back to me. ‘Is that even your real name?’

I look at the floor. We stand, wordlessly, swaying like trees in the wind.

‘Yes,’ I choke out after a moment. ‘But it’s my middle name. I’ve been using it since.’

‘Since when?’224